


Circular Logic

by sweetkidlousycook



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-31
Updated: 2014-07-31
Packaged: 2018-02-11 03:34:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2052054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetkidlousycook/pseuds/sweetkidlousycook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"At first, most of the time they didn't spend running and shouting they spent teaching and learning. He already knew all about her and he said it was only right to return the favour, not just because he already had but because he wanted to."</p><p>River learns Gallifreyan and about Donna while mulling over the fact she's a self-fulfilling prophecy.</p><p>Wrote most of this shortly after A Good Man Goes To War aired, forgot about it, and came back to it to tweak it back into vague canon compliance (not that this matters, it is Doctor Who after all)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Circular Logic

At first, most of the time they didn't spend running and shouting they spent teaching and learning. He already knew all about her and he said it was only right to return the favour, not just because he already had but because he wanted to.

Some parts were wonderful. Learning Gallifreyan was pure joy, first speaking then reading and writing - the runic simplicity of Old High, the ebb and flow of Modern, and finally the ritual Circular, spinning on and on forever. She found it easy to throw herself into her work and this was no exception; a brain like hers combined with a woeful lack of distraction had made her getting PhD child's play. So she had found herself hobbies, like learning how to get where she wanted without waiting for him, how to make up for not having 51st century pheromones by being utterly cool. All fine and good most of the time but not when she needed it most. Maybe she should have taken up astrophysics instead, or possibly knitting.

"It sings to me." She threw her head back as she laughed. "Is that strange?"

The Doctor smiled. "Not at all. Language is manmade but it's organic too, and this has the vortex and the schism in every syllable. It speaks directly to that tangle in your DNA. No mortal language in the universe compares."

She rolled her eyes. "Time Lords aren't immortal."

"Well, you know what I mean." There was an awkward pause. "Maybe we should speak it when we're alone."

She laughed again. She loved to laugh because it made everyone else uncomfortable, but never him. From the look on his face it was her laugh that showed the power of a weapon, the joy of a child and the mischievousness of a lover more than anything else about his River, and she wasn't about to stop when her future depended on it. Oh, he tried to hide it, but there were some things a girl like her could tell. "Ooh, a secret code language. Have you really never taught it to anyone before?"

"No, I haven't, and not because of sentimentality or snobbery or anything like that so don't give me that look." He ran his fingers through his hair nervously. She touched his arm to calm him down and he sighed with all the resignation of a man a millennium old. Or more. She was convinced he'd restarted the count a few times. "I mean, at first I didn't need to. I could talk to other Time Lords whenever I wanted, which admittedly wasn't very often but that's the thing about convenience. And then, well, there never seemed to be a right time. I think. It's hard to remember. Purposefully."

"Ah yes, the doors." She made a long-suffering face.

"Did your father tell you about those, or will I?"

"Both, and neither. This isn't my first rodeo, and by rodeo I mean regeneration, remember?"

"Of course." He paused then clapped his hands together. "Now, enough blithering about. We've got to work on your handwriting. It's going all slanty, look."

Other things were much less pleasant. Perhaps he'd suggested it to push her away for another year or two. If she were the paranoid type she'd be sure he was trying to make him hate her.

"Why are we in the kitchen?" She looked around in case there were hidden instruments, something that could crack open the mess of a Time Lord memory, but all she saw was cupboards and the kitchen sink and something that looked a lot like a mid-20th century Terran gas hob.

"Isn't it obvious? We need to brew up. Tea is an essential part of the process." She raised elegantly shaped eyebrows. "Well, it is," he said grumpily. "Really, this isn't one of those tricky things, it's all just talking, and that's a lot easier with tea. I could just headbutt it all in there. Save some time." He wore something close to a grin while she tried to find the kettle. This particular kitchen was a tip and there were no jammy dodgers in sight. The TARDIS was clearly in one of her moods.

"You're so lazy," she huffed. "Plus that would be a bad idea in so very many ways."

"I know, I know. Spoilers."

In the grand scale of things did he start that or did she? It was something else that spiralled, another part of the mobius strip of her life, and didn't that just _hurt_ sometimes, the aching feeling that she was trapped by destiny, that free will that was something which had never applied to her. She felt like she might cry and bit her lip hard. Melody Pond cried, not River Song, and she couldn't be that girl. She hadn't been that girl since a dirty street in 1960s New York.

He'd been putting the teabags in the mugs and carefully measuring out milk by eye as if it were a complex scientific experiment but he stopped suddenly and stared at her. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Tell me, River." He swallowed, clearly nervous, something that always made her tremble. She knew this bashfulness was part of his current personality with or without her and that a lot of it was a distraction from whatever wheels were turning, but would it be so bad to believe she actually had some effect on him? "I'm putting a lot of trust in you right now and I like to think you feel… well, somewhat similarly, I suppose."

"Don't worry, I'm just mulling over the notion of predestination. That's all."

He pretended to perk up a bit, and while it didn't cheer her up she was touched by the attempt. "Ah, that's only to be expected. Don't think about it too hard or you'll get stuck that way."

It was an experience for both of them, sitting with him while he unearthed those memories, not dead but sleeping behind walls of rewritten neurones and buried under time. It wasn't all stoicism. She smiled when he talked about Susan, excitedly recounting the first time she said "grandfather". But some of it was painful almost beyond measure and would have been unbearable if she didn't have perspective. She didn't give him the satisfaction of slapping him when he called her an ape or even of getting jealous when he sat there crying about Rose. Sure, she briefly wondered if the TARDIS had shuffled her room off to some distant corner so it could remain untouched like a particularly messy shrine, but that was all.

No, Rose wasn't what broke her. That was Donna.

She listened, quietly and calmly at first but increasingly with agitation as he explained how she'd begged to be allowed to die and instead been mindwiped. "How could you be so selfish?" she whispered.

"I'd seen so much death. I'd lost so much. So many people. I couldn't let her die. Please, River. You have to understand."

"No, you have to understand. She made her choice and you ignored her. And it wasn't as if she was stupid, not by a long shot. She knew just as much as you. That was the whole point." She began to laugh a little hysterically. "No. No. She knew MORE than you. She knew that a short life that's full of knowledge and adventure and wonder and beauty is so, SO much better than a long one that's meaningless!" She choked back tears. "And what I know is that I'd make the same choice if you threatened me with a mind wipe. _Why are you looking at me like that?_ "

He didn't say anything. Instead he leaned in and pressed his face into her shoulder, and suddenly it felt like every nerve in her body was screaming at her. But it was all wrong. This couldn't be the pivotal moment.

"You'll forget me too someday," she managed finally.

"Maybe I won't have to." He couldn't meet her eyes, but that was fine because she couldn't meet his either. A thousand deaths flashed before her eyes.

"I'm going to die before you. I know it from the way you look at me." She began to choke up. "I'll never let anyone hurt you. I gave all my life to you. I'll die, and you'll forget me because remembering hurts."

He smiled. "Oh River. There's some things that can't be forgotten."

"Such as?"

"Spoilers. All I'll say is that no-one hurts me like you do."

She brushed away tears, then laughed and pressed her hand against his. "Is that a promise?"

"Flirt." He shifted awkwardly in response to her touch but didn't move away. "Don't you trust me?"

"I don't have much choice." She shrugged and tried to intertwine their fingers but he pulled back, a look of shock on his face.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

She hesitated. Fine. If he wants an exchange of painful secrets so much then he'll get it. "I'm what you've made of me, after all. You and Madam Kovarian and the Silence."

"I don't understand."

"You wouldn't. You've had lives of your own. But me? There's never been a day when I've not been in orbit around you for one reason or another, whether I've been Melody or Mels or River. You'll never know what that's like."

"You're right, I won't. But I can try." He looked adorable when he tried to make a serious face, she thought. That thought would have to be enough for now.


End file.
